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Norval Morrisseau was an Aboriginal Canadian artist. He is known as the “Picasso of the North”, he created pieces depicting the legends of his people, the cultural and political tensions between the Canadian and European traditions, his existential struggles, and his deep spirituality and mysticism.

I feel that his art is whimsical. There are many bright colours. They show how full of life the first nations people were. They looked at everything as good and beautiful. The lines are also never perfect which shows that nothing is perfect. I feel that Morrisseau just drew what he was feeling. He didn’t take time to figure out what he was going to draw, he just put his pencil to the paper and let his emotions do the work.

This piece is called “Thunderbird with Inner Spirit.” I relate to this image because it shows that we always have a voice inside of us helping make decisions. It may not seem right at the time but we should always follow our conscience because it will always guide us in the right direction. Our inner spirit is who we truly are. The spirit inside the bird looks nothing like the thunderbird but it is who the bird really is. When we are alone we can find ourselves and help us become the person we want to be. I think Morrisseau was effective in generating debate. His portrayed his work the way he wanted it to look like, he didn’t care how other people saw it. His work was a representation of himself and if people couldn’t understand that then they just admired the effort and creativity that went into each piece. To be completely honest I am not a huge fan of this work but as a fellow artist I can appreciate the openness Morrisseau shows. He put himself into his art and showed his true emotions behind his internal struggles. I chose Morrisseau because he spoke to me in a way that the other options didn’t. He made me feel like I knew him and how he reacted to certain times in his life.

This photo was taken near the end of the 60’s during the Vietnam war. Many protests were happening in opposition of the war. The photographer, Bernie Boston, was sitting on the Pentagon wall and witnessed the National Guardsman lieutenant march a group armed men into the sea of protesters as they neared the gates. The protesters did not want to fight so they placed, what look like daisies, in the rifles. Learn more about it here.

This photo is “good” because of the spontaneity. The man in this photo did this because he wanted peace in the world. The hippies did not want fighting which is why they protested. This photo is good because it shows the amount of effort the American people went through to try and help people in a different country they have never met. They really wanted to make a change in a war-torn world. This photo is personal because people today are trying to fight for a peaceful world but they aren’t trying hard enough. The hippies, that were all over America, could be a huge example to those fighting today because they did all that they could to end war.

As I mentioned before, this image was spontaneous. Not only did the photographer say that but also the fact that most people wouldn’t risk their lives like that just for the sake of a picture. It was very scary that the hippies marched to the pentagon and when they were confronted, they placed flowers in the guns that were pointed at them. This photo shows heroism because the hippies put their lives at stake in order for a utopian and peaceful world. It may never be achieved but they hoped for it and did what they could to reach their goal.

Everyone has a favourite Instagram account. One that when you open up the app you joyfully scroll through your timeline, and all of your friend’s photos, hoping that your most cherished account has posted a picture. It could be your favourite celebrity’s account or a dog account that makes you smile and makes the world seem a little bit better.

I really like an Instagram account called @onthere. It is run by a man named Onder Turkmen, a successful businessman.

This account is appealing to me because this man knows what he’s doing when he takes photos. He uses many different techniques in his photos. If we look at this picture, he used the technique called leading lines. The first thing your eyes go to is the bench right in front. If you follow the planks of the bench, then the trees, it leads you straight to the Eiffel Tower and curves right up to the top. Turkmen’s subjects are also always stunning as well (it helps that he has practically traveled the world). The way he frames his subjects are beautiful too. They aren’t always centered, which isn’t bad, it’s different in a good way. In the photo of the sunset in Venezia, he used a technique called the rule of thirds, where the image isn’t centered in the image it is placed on an imaginary 3×3 grid and off to one of the corners.

Learning from amateur photographers is so important because it shows that we can get inspiration from anywhere and take photos of anything. Just because we see a professional photograph we feel like we can never capture anything that spectacular but there are amateurs that are just starting out like we are and take amazing pictures too. It is also important to learn from our classmates because they might see things a different way than we do. So what may seem like a flower to us it may be a personal symbol of growing and change.

Ub Iwerks was an early cartoonist who created many notable works, like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, with his friend Walt Disney.

Ub Iwerks sparked interest in me because he helped with the creation of the Walt Disney Empire. Disney movies are a very personal thing to me because I grew up watching a lot of them and I will still watch them to this day. Iwerks is considered responsible for the distinctive style of early Disney animations. He was very creative and knew from the beginning that drawing is what he wanted to do. Him and Walt created Oswald the
Lucky Rabbit but after losing the rights to the character, they created one of the most recognized characters in history, Mickey Mouse. This is interesting because after losing the only thing they had going for them, they bounced right back with another chance at a fame with a mouse.

I can include his ideas in my work because he created early Disney animations which was a huge step for the media arts community. He showed that animation is a great job and how much fun it is. He showed that you don’t have to separate entertainment and education. His works inspired many informative animations to help youth learn, like the Disney Short Films Collection (available on Netflix, to anyone that is able to watch it which I HIGHLY recommend). Shorts like Tic Toc which shows how bravery can save the day or The Ballad of Nessie which displays the value of never giving up.

Welcome to my blog! This blog is an assignment for my grade eleven media arts class. We are required to keep a blog and post about art every two weeks, subscribe so you can be notified when I create a new blog entry. So stay tuned for more posts.